Latemorning deals see positive trades

The markets continued to witness positive trades in late morning deals, despite weak global cues, with the BSE Sensex at 16,913, up 36 points and the Nifty at 5,130, up 12 points.

Earlier in the day, the BSE benchmark index touched the day's high at 16,954 and the day's low at 16,884.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei share average slipped to a six-week intraday low on Tuesday on mounting worries that Spain may need a financial bailout, putting further pressure on a fragile global economy. The index is at 8,481, down 0.32%. The Hang Seng index is up 0.26% and the Shanghai Composite index is up 0.57%.

Meanwhile, the rupee today breached the 56-mark, down 13 paise to trade at fresh three-week low of 56.10 against the US dollar on the Interbank Foreign Exchange due to strong demand for the American currency from banks and importers, particularly oil firms.

Hindustan Unilever is the top gainer among the Sensex stocks, up 5.4% at Rs 467 after reporting 112% year-on-year (yoy) jump in net profit at Rs 1,331 crore for the quarter ended June 2012, on back of land deals. The core net profit (before accounting for exceptional items) has increased by a 48% to Rs 855 crore during the recently concluded quarter. Revenues grew 14% at Rs 6,250 crore during the quarter under review on yoy basis.

Maruti Suzuki has also trading higher by 1.66% at Rs 1,098 in trades today. Other prominent gainers include Sterlite Industries, ICICI Bank and Jindal Steel, up 1-2% each.

On the other hand, Wipro is the top loser among the Sensex stocks. The stock has slipped 3.2% to Rs 345 after it reported, lower than expected, 18% rise in quarterly net profit. Analysts were expecting the net profit to be around Rs 1,600 crore. the compay has forecast subdued IT services sales for the current quarter.

Sun pharma industries, BHEL, Dr Reddy's and Tata Motors are also trading in the red, down 1% each.

On the sectoral front, FMCG index is the top gainer, up nearly 2% or 74 points at ,4952. BSE Consumer Durables, Oil & Gas, Bankex indices are up nearly 1% each. At the same time led by losses in Wipro, the BSE IT index is trading marginally lower. BSE Capital Goods index is leading the losses, down 1%.

Among individual stocks, Idea Cellular is trading lower by 3% at Rs 78 after reporting a marginal drop in consolidated net profit at Rs 234 crore for the quarter ended June 2012, on a quarter-on-quarter basis (qoq). The company had a net profit of Rs 239 crore in the previous quarter.

Tata Global Beverages is trading higher by 4.2% at Rs 121 on reporting a robust 53% year-on-year (yoy) growth in consolidated operating profit at Rs 181 crore for the quarter ended June 2012.

The broader markets are trading on a flat note with BSE mid-cap and small-cap indices up 0.2% each.

Overall breadth is positive as 1184 stocks are advancing while 1029 are declining.